


when the battle is done

by DesertLily



Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Category: The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Anger, Angst, Bertie dies, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief, Hurt No Comfort, Jonny is a dick, Mustard Gas, Sad Ending, Tim goes through a lot, War, Whumptober, Whumptober 2020, gas attacks, gunpowder tim vs the moon kaiser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-19
Updated: 2020-10-19
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:42:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27107401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertLily/pseuds/DesertLily
Summary: For their entire lives, it had always been Bertie and Tim - never one without any other. They grew up together. They went to war together.  Tim ended the war alone.
Relationships: Bertie & Gunpowder Tim (The Mechanisms)
Series: Whumptober 2020 [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946296
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	when the battle is done

**Author's Note:**

> Has this fic concept been done before? Absolutely! Is it going to stop me writing my own version? Absolutely not. For the "Please don't leave me" prompt for Whumptober

Bertie and Tim were like day and night; complete opposites but one always ended up following the other. Since the day they met, the two had become inseparable. Bertie was the older of the two and probably the more ‘liked’. People always liked him, claiming he was a smart boy. They never liked Tim as much. Tim was the troublemaker of the two - the one most likely to cause a little chaos. People would claim he was pulling Bertie down or holding him back, but that wasn’t true. Because Tim adored Bertie and Bertie adored him. They were a two-piece puzzle with the other being a perfect fit.

They did everything together. 

Including enlisting in the army. 

If Tim could go back to the moment Bertie had first suggested the idea, he would have begged and pleaded with him to do anything else. He would insist that it would be some horrible mistake; that things would be better if they stayed home! There were thousands of soldiers! The two of them didn’t need to fight! But that wasn’t what Tim had done. He had grinned and agreed without a second of hesitation. Besides, all the other boys their age were doing it - and they were boys. They were too innocent. Practically still school boys that had never held a gun. They had no idea what they were getting into. How could they? If there was one thing the British government was good at, it was propaganda. Fighting the Moon Kaiser seemed like such a glorious and noble opportunity! In reality, it had been hell. 

They wouldn’t all ‘be home by Christmas’. 

They wouldn’t come home at all. 

The training wasn’t so bad. Tim and Bertie got to know the other boys in their unit. They joked around together, formed friendships they really knew they shouldn’t have. Deep down, Tim knew the training wasn’t as long as it should have been. He had seen men shipped off to the moon mere days after they had learnt to shoot a gun. The army were just looking for  _ anyone _ that could fight; not necessarily those that could fight well. Canon fodder, really. Enough to keep the war going whilst they attempted to train those that  _ could _ fight. Poor bastards. Tim and his boys were lucky though. He was a good shot. It was...unnervingly natural to him. He would aim, shoot, and hit almost every target perfectly. He suspected that might have been why they had actually gotten full training. This group of soon-to-be lost souls had potential. 

Tim would be lying if he said he wasn’t excited when he was shipped off to the moon. All of them were! This was it! Their grand moment of finally joining the fight! All the training would finally pay off. Their excitement quickly wore off. Half of Tim’s unit was dead within the first week - some obliterated by gatling guns fired mercilessly at those who went over the top, the rest by mustard gas. There was nothing more terrifying than watching someone die from the gas. They suffered and they suffered  _ brutally _ . Most of the time, one of the other soldiers would give them a shot to the head; a quick end to their pain. Tim had never been able to do it. It was...different than fighting the enemy. These weren’t strangers. These were people he  _ knew _ ; people he not-so-proudly fought with. And Tim tried not to think about the microwave attacks; an invisible wave of pure heat that would burn any man it touched. Tim had seen the older men - the ones slowed down by the weight of both time and the war - cooked alive because they couldn’t get to cover fast enough. It was a sight he was sure he would never forget. 

Though, one good thing did come out of the mustard gas.

Gassed Last Night was one hell of a song to sing to keep morale up. 

That was all they had really. Terrible war songs, stories from back home, bad jokes, and occasionally someone would pull out a pack of cards. In the trenches, rank didn’t matter as much. Everyone was as good as equal. You all lived in foul conditions and took orders from high command; from men that had never so much as stepped foot on the moon. They were miserable, but they were miserable together. Every man was your friend but you rarely bothered to learn his name. There was a good chance he would be dead the next morning. But Tim still listened as they talked about their loved ones and the latest letters that had arrived. He had his own, of course. He kept one from his mum and sister, along with a family photo, tucked firmly away in his pocket. Tim always made sure he had them with him. He’d probably have a photo of Bertie too if he wasn’t always still by Tim’s side. 

In the midst of the war, their duo became a quartet. They were being split into smaller groups now - supposedly it made it easier to look out for each other. Of course, they would all still swarm over the top together but outside of that...outside of that they were your responsibility and you were those. Jonny d’Ville and the Toy Soldier. If the war hadn’t numbed Tim completely, he probably would have asked what the fuck was up with their names. But he didn’t. Bertie warmed up to them quickly, but that was just Bertie being...Bertie.  _ He warmed up to everyone _ . He’d probably even have tea with the Moon Kaiser if offered. That thought had made him snort and had caused Bertie to hit him upside the head when he suggested it. 

But it would be a long time before Tim warmed up to Jonny and the Toy Soldier. Twenty three years, two weeks, three days, one hair, twenty three minutes, and eleven seconds exactly. He had never asked Ivy  _ how _ exactly she knew the time. But he had long since stopped questioning where Ivy got numbers from and just simply...accepted them. She was rarely wrong, anyways. 

It was about two months after their quartet had formed that it became a trio. The Toy Soldier had defected. Not that Tim minded much anyways. Quite frankly, it had always unnerved him a little. It was...too happy and positive to be in the middle of a war. The fact it was essentially a living doll really didn’t help. Tim had once had the chance to watch a horror film - a rare surviving relic of the twentieth century - focusing on a living doll. It may have been just a film but it always came to mind when he had been stuck with that...thing. If it wanted to fight for the other side then good for it! One less problem for Tim to worry about. 

Tim knew he and Bertie were seen as being ‘lucky’. They had been fighting for years - Tim had signed up when he was seventeen and was now somehow at twenty two - and neither of them had died yet. It was more than could be said for the rest of their original infantry. But both of them were growing tired now. The war had taken its toll on their minds and bodies. If they had souls then those would have probably been obliterated too. Jonny, however, seemed to be having the time of his fucking life. It was, in its own way, almost relieving. A reminder that things hadn’t always been so bleak. There was still happiness to be had. Tim even found himself smiling a few times at Jonny’s terrible attempts at humour. 

Then it happened. 

Everything went wrong. 

Everyone had a respirator. It was part of their standard kit  _ but _ it was your own duty to repair and look after it. If you lost or broke it? You either had to steal one from a corpse or find a way to make do without. But it was hard to tell when it was broken. The unrelenting darkness of the moon tunnels made it had to make out any marks or scratches. Some people didn’t even realise something was wrong until it was too late. 

Just like Bertie. 

It was a routine whenever the alarm signalling a gas attack went off. Bertie would always make sure to help Tim with the straps for his mask before putting on his own whilst Jonny rolled his eyes at them. Only this time, Bertie’s mask wouldn’t do up. Tim tried to move to take off his own; to hand it over but by then it was too late. Bertie held the mask as close to his face as he could but it wasn’t enough. He was left watching as his best friend choked and wheezed as the gas scorched his lungs. The mask slipped from his hands as Bertie began to grasp at his neck - as if somehow begging it to let him just  _ breathe _ . 

The pumps kicked in too late just like they always did. When the gas was gone, it was too late. Tim ripped his own mask off as he moved to cradle Bertie in his arms. “No...No. No No. You don’t get to do this, okay? It’s me and you!” His voice grew higher and higher as hysteria set in. It was almost enough to block out Jonny howling with laughter in the background. “We...We’re supposed to get through this together.” 

Through all of his pain, Bertie still somehow managed to offer Tim a smile. One last smile before his body went still. 

“No…” Tim felt numb as he pulled Bertie close, clutching his body tightly as if he could somehow will him to be okay; will him to be alive. But that was impossible. Dead was dead. Nobody ever came back. “ **_Please don’t leave me._ ** ” The only response Tim got was Jonny’s laughter dying down into soft chuckles. Bertie’s corpse remained silent. 

Whatever sanity and strength Tim had  _ broke _ after that. He didn’t have Bertie anymore. He didn’t have a reason to care! All he had was rage. Rage directed entirely at the Moon Kaiser and he was going to pay. Most of him had as good as died with Bertie. All that was left was Gunpowder Tim, the man that would kill the Moon Kaiser and blow up the moon. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are appreciated or hmu @ desert-lily on tumblr!


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